


31 Days of Winter

by Deejaymil



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Assorted Content, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Daily Prompts, F/F, Friendship/Love, Prompt Fic, Romance, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 13:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 6,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12889230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: Winter is Emily's season, harsh and cold and unforgiving. JJ, despite preferring summer, wouldn't have her any other way.Somehow, they make it work.





	1. December 1st

**Author's Note:**

> [The daily prompts are back](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/7guuz3/pintsized_prompts_december_2017/)! Join us for some festive fun over at [/r/fanfiction](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/), or come chat on our friendly [Discord](https://discord.gg/P9VRuDk) server.
> 
>  

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Snowfall**  -  **100 words**  – It’s winter! Your characters venture outside to enjoy the freshly fallen snow.

It’s only October, but this hide-away for a dead woman is surrounded by glaring fields of untouched snow. The traveller pauses, looking around. Behind her, there’s a broken trail of snow-shoe footprints leading right to Emily’s front door. A hide-away no longer. The door opens. Emily steps outside with a blanket around her shoulders and a headset hooked to one ear.

“Switzerland, Emily?” JJ greets her friend, making those final few steps to the air-warmed front porch.

“I go where he does,” Emily replies, hugging her tight. The mountain is silent. They’re alone, but together. Finally.

They step inside. The snow begins to fall again.


	2. December 2nd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Giftstery**  - **400 words**  - Tiny presents are being left all over the place! Your character(s) are determined to figure out who’s behind this.

There’s something incredibly lonely about returning from the dead, or at least in Emily’s experience of it. Doyle is gone. Dead, permanently, and everything has changed.

Well, not everything.

The job is still the same. Sunday dinners with her mother are, somehow, exactly how they were. Her apartment is different, more modest with less Sergio to keep her company.

Her friends are different.

Spencer loathes her. She can feel it in his incriminatory gaze, resenting her for the disruption she’s caused. When she’s feeling uncharitable, she thinks him selfish for this. But she understands. Not everyone is as comfortable with grief as she is, and Spencer had—until her—been untouched by the dangerous concept of loss.

Hotch is wary of her. Maybe her time chasing Doyle has made her different, like a dog beaten one too many times.

Morgan is disgusted by her.

So, when she finds the gift on her desk—neatly wrapped with a perfect little bow, which is how she knows it isn’t fumble-fingers Reid—she knows exactly who left it, her suspicions only confirmed when she unwraps it and finds a ticket to an eclectic opera that only two people know that she takes an interest in. And it’s not Reid, so she makes her way to JJ’s office and stares at the other woman until she notices.

Which is when she spots the wrapping in the wastepaper basket by the door.

“You got one too?” she asks, JJ startling at the sound of her voice.

“Too?” JJ asks. “You mean, it wasn’t you?”

They look at each other. Emily’s never been able to read JJ’s emotions, not ever. The woman wears a mask made of make-up and smiles. There’s nothing written there that she doesn’t want Emily to see. Despite this, Emily believes her.

“Well then,” Emily says slowly, “I guess we have a friend.”

 

“Why?” JJ asks when he opens the door. “I thought…”

Clearly dressed for bed, Hotch does nothing but study her intently. “I know you flew out of the country five times while she was away,” he says finally. “Will you tell me why?”

Her silence says everything.

But he says quietly, “She needs someone—she’s struggling and it’s visible for everyone to see. The others will come around, but they need time. Until then, enjoy the opera. Goodnight, JJ.”

And he closes the door and leaves her standing there.


	3. December 3rd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Warm**  -  **100 words**  - [Picture Prompt!](https://i.imgur.com/wmE1Tvu.gifv)

“What is this?” Emily’s voice is dead-pan snark.

To JJ’s delight, it’s Reid who responds, the glee in his cheeky, “Indirect observation suggests that it’s a juvenile _Felis catus,_ of course, I might be wrong—” a return to the Reid of old.

“Why is there a wet kitten in your hat?” Hotch asks.

“I found him outside,” JJ replies innocently, seeing Emily reach a tentative finger into the woolly hat, the hat purring in response. “I figured maybe Emily might know what to do with him, since Sergio is at Garcia’s...”

Emily glares, but the kitten just purrs louder.


	4. December 4th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Senses**  -  **400 words**  - Your character has been blindfolded by someone they trust and taken somewhere cold. Use only their other senses to describe what happens.

“We’re here,” JJ says, the car rolling to a stop. Emily hrumphs a little more, hunching into her seat and refusing to acknowledge their arrival. “Emily, seriously. Stop being a cranky worm about this.”

Emily almost, _almost,_ takes the blindfold off just to stare at her for that. A… _what_?

“You’re too weird to exist,” she says instead, hearing JJ laugh in response and the driver’s side door snicking open, letting in a furious gust of cold air. It closes, leaving Emily fumbling blindly for her own handle, until it pulls open under her hand and the cold returns. The hand holding hers is JJ’s, but she’s not alone. Emily knows her teammates. She’s worked, slept, and bled by their sides for years. That scent of leather and pretentiousness? David Rossi.

But she doesn’t give away that she knows, just lets herself be pulled from the car and led along a slick pathway. Something ahead radiates heat. And then they’re inside, a fire audibly crackling nearby and the sounds around them turning comfortably hollow. Up the wooden hall, towards the scent of cooking. Despite Rossi’s attempt at being sneaky, Emily hears the front door they just entered through close behind her, even though JJ is still at her arm. Her hand brushes a door, JJ leaning around and clicking it open. There’s a fraught silence as they step inside and hands reach up to undo her blindfold, letting it tumble down to a meal set for seven. Despite her being unblindfolded now, JJ doesn’t let go of her hand.

Everyone is there, and they’re all watching her.

“We didn’t think you’d come unless we did this,” Penelope says. There’s a cat carrier on the counter behind her and Sergio is eating a chunk of ham. “Don’t be mad.”

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Em,” Rossi says. “We should have done this months ago.”

Emily blinks, looking from face to face to face and, finally, to Spencer, the blindfold sitting in front of him not escaping her notice either. “They had to blindfold you too, huh?” she asks him. “Didn’t think you’d come?”

That hurts. She’s still reeling that they did this for her, but that hurts.

But in return, he smiles. “No,” he says quietly. “It was my idea. Welcome back, Emily. I’m really glad you’re not dead.”

JJ’s still holding her hand.

Emily doesn’t let go.


	5. December 5th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Bells**  -  **200 words**  - Silver bells, sleigh bells, church bells, doorbells - whatever they are, they’re getting this character hyped for the holidays.

Christmas Eve is lonely. She goes for a walk, rugged up for the blistering cold with her earmuffs not quite thick enough to block out the merry jingle of a roll of gold bells hanging from a tree nearby. Cold and grim and done with the season, Emily walks up the street to her condo, the windows dark and cold unlike those she passes that spill gold light and cheer onto the street around her. Santa on a street corner rings his own bell for charity, a hat at his feet and his bearded face ruddy with the chill. She gives him everything she has in her purse and wonders what her team is doing tonight.

She envies Hotch his family. Knows Morgan is in Chicago with his own. Wonders if Reid made the trip to Vegas this year. Wonders if JJ is just as alone as she is, in her own silent apartment. But, before she can keep wondering, there’s a buzz in her pocket. Her cell-phone dings twice. _SMS received: JJ_

_> Ding dong. Open your door. I’ve come to ungrinch your Christmas, with wine and bad TV._

Christmas Eve might be lonely, but they ring in the day together.


	6. December 6th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Cosy**  -  **200 words**  - Who cares if it’s (nuclear) winter? We’ve got ourselves a nice little cosy catastrophe.

“Do you ever think about the world ending?” Emily’s voice is absurdly wistful, considering the question, but JJ isn’t surprised. Out of everyone she’s ever known, Emily is the most concerned with her own assumed purposelessness. Determined to prove herself in order to defy her belief in her own intrinsic lack of worth. She continues: “It would probably feel like this. Nothing but white and bullshit snow. Nuclear winter, goodbye everything.”

“Hello negativity,” JJ mutters, but doesn’t really blame her. This is a case gone as wrong as possible without one of them en-route to a pine box. The room they’re trapped in is stone, walls radiating freezing air. Emily’s jacket is around them both. They’re hoping for a miracle.

“I wouldn’t mind it, I don’t think,” says Emily, her head drifting a little down. Lips blue, nails bluer. JJ hangs on to those whitening hands and hopes harder. “The world ending like this…”

She’s delirious. They’ve been locked down here for hours. JJ tells her to be quiet and wait for the team.

And Emily replies softly, “At least I’m with you. Last time, I died alone.”

That sentence haunts JJ beyond the icy grave they escape this day.


	7. December 7th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Bonfire**  -  **100 words**  - The weather out here is frightful. Character needs a bonfire for an important plot point.

Rossi’s idea: a bonfire to thaw the icy memory of the room they’d almost died in. Emily’s team surrounds her as the fire pops and crackles and brings them to life. She feels drunk, ridiculous, loved, alive, alive, alive.

“I’m alive,” she tells someone, she thinks maybe Reid. He laughs.

“I’m alive,” she tells someone else, whirling and dancing with them, and there’s beer on her shirt.

“We’re alive,” she tells another, and, because she’s alive and warm and loved, kisses that someone. That someone kisses back.

“Damn right we are,” says JJ, and they chase the cold away together.


	8. December 8th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Steamy**  -  **100 words**  - [A perfect, relaxing morning.](https://i.imgur.com/uLP6PZH.gifv)

It’s almost a normal morning. A mug of coffee in front of her, helping chase away the chill of the frigid air outside, and an unread book by the mug. The kitten is playing with the hanging edge of her thick robe, claws going _snick_ in the soft fabric. But from behind her, the soft pad of footsteps sounds.

“Didn’t peg you for a late riser,” Emily teases, heart hammering in the uncertain newness of this moment.

And JJ smiles, the awkwardness fading.

It’s almost a normal morning, but the table is set for two and the book remains unopened.


	9. December 9th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Sticky**  - **400 words**  - Character wakes up in a giant Gingerbread House.

It’s JJ’s idea, because Emily ‘I was just in a car crash, I’m fine, where’s my gun’ Prentiss doesn’t do consensual holidays, but after Doyle and the Face Cards… well, JJ’s determined that that needs to change.

“This place is weird,” Emily complains, wandering around the gimmicky hotel room JJ has booked for them. “I kind of expect a witch to pop out of a cupboard.”

“Don’t worry, I already checked for witches,” JJ reassures her. The room is, to put it politely, ‘sweet’. Sweet, as in it feels like they’ve stepped inside a gingerbread house, complete with glazed wallpaper and icing trimming. It’s revolting. JJ loves it. “Isn’t it gross?”

Emily is looking at the butter-yellow closet door like she wants to lick it, right before she turns and gives JJ a look only describable as seditious. “Why Jennifer Jareau,” she murmurs, cocking one hand against her hip like she’s setting the palm on the butt of the gun that isn’t there: “There’s only one bed. Are you trying to seduce me?”

JJ’s heart skips a little. “Maybe,” she replies, setting her own hand against the bruise on Emily’s cheek. Her mouth is still a little swollen and there’s a bruise on JJ’s own collarbone that Emily’s calloused fingers skim over. She’s rough where JJ is delicate, and JJ wonders if she’s ever told her how much she admires her for that. The work they do, it’s always incredible to her that her colleagues manage to keep their rough edges without being smoothed down to nothing. There’s nothing that frightens her more than the idea that one day, maybe soon, one of teammates might go ‘this is it’ and walk away from them.

She’s seen the promise of that in Emily’s eyes, and the offer from Interpol in her inbox.

“Tell me the truth,” Emily is saying, dark eyes downcast. Even in this garish hotel room, the ‘honeyed’ suite, they bring a gloomy air to the atmosphere. A miserable kind of waiting. Teetering between staying or leaving. “Why _did_ you invite me to Hansel and Gretel’s nightmare? I don’t think this is just you trying to get in my pants, no matter how shy about kissing girls you are.”

And JJ says simply, “I want you to stay,” and kisses those bruised lips, finding all the places that Emily, even with her calloused hands, is still soft and vulnerable.


	10. December 10th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > December 10th:  **Sneeze**  -  **100 words**  - Oh no, someone has a cold! Every time they sneeze they grant the people around them their powers. (Or knowledge/skills, may vary by universe.)

Emily has a cold, trying to quiz JJ on the information found in the trainee agents’ exam. Every flash card is accompanied by a sneeze or a sniffle, turning every question just a little odd. “Why are we doing this?” Emily finally asks, red-nosed and watery-eyed, sneezing again. “It’s bullshit to promote you to a job you’ve been doing for seven years.

JJ reaches for the box of tissues. “You’re right,” she replies. “How can I mess up ‘list three types of achoos?’” Despite this, she decides: they’ve studied enough, and there’s a Very Sneezy Agent that needs a nap.


	11. December 11th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > December 11th:  **Penguin**  -  **200 words**  - [Welp.](https://i.imgur.com/Sdn8Ku1.gifv) There go your characters’ plans for today. Have they been invaded by festive penguins? Turned into festive penguins?!

“This is the weirdest case ever,” says Reid again, itching at the orange paint denoting his beak and faking an unnerving smile as children run up to him for balloons. Emily, despite her qualms about dressing up as a penguin, is almost having fun. They’re in very little danger here, just keeping an eye out for their unsub returned to the scene in the week following the animal park reopening—Hotch is doubtful that he will, but they have to be sure. Emily isn’t sure why the only undercover opportunity is ‘penguin mascots’ but, shit, at least she’s not playing sexy Santa’s elf—

“JJ looks nice,” Reid says, far too innocently. Emily stares him down. “Enjoyable, um, leggings.”

“Pervert,” Emily says. “She’ll kick your dick off if she catches you staring at her ass in that skirt.”

Reid looks at her, his stupid Bambi eyes out in full force behind his penguin-y makeup. “I’d be worried if I was you then,” he says, “because she’s spotted you at _least_ twice.”

“Shut up and go back to complaining about Christmas in July,” Emily says grumpily, and considers popping all of his balloons, if she can somehow do it without seeming childish…


	12. December 12th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **One**  -  **100 words**  - A single candle burns in the night.

There are a lot of single things this night. A single movie they don’t pay attention to. A single song, played by a neighbour unaware of the moment they’re sharing. A single touch, a brush of hand against hand. Emily has a candle burning, just one, because she’s transfixed by the warm flicker of candlelight on bare skin, a movie far more interesting than the one they’ve abandoned. On this single night, they discover each other. It’s revolutionary for them both.

A single night, because a first, by definition, stands alone. But that doesn’t stop it being followed by more.


	13. December 13th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Sugarrush**  -  **300 words**  - A [fresh field of snow,](https://i.imgur.com/TxpYLLU.jpg) an excess of sugary treats, you know what needs to happen!

They wake in the middle of the night to snow heaped high against the windows of Emily’s condo. When they rouse properly, they dress quickly and warmly, seeing nothing but white outside the slim sliver of window left to them. Thick pyjamas with bathrobes overtop and warm boots on that probably aren’t made for what they intend to do, they take their time with mugs of hot chocolate made in silence but with their bodies saying everything; there’s a vibrant connection between them now as Emily stirs the chocolate powder in and JJ brushes her hand with her own, or as Emily heats the milk and JJ comes up behind her, chin on her shoulder and slim arms wrapped tight around her waist. Despite how small JJ is, the gesture is comforting. For a moment, Emily doesn’t feel large and gangly next to her diminutive friend.

Emily has candy in her pocket left over from a gift from Spencer, unwrapping one for JJ as they make their way down the stairs to the outside world. When they pause to kiss in the corner of the stairwell, they taste of sugar and chocolate, mugs tipping dangerously in their steam-warmed hands.

And then, they’re outside. It’s late, or early, depending on which woman is asked. The moon is hidden by a low bank of stormy clouds. The temperature is frigid and they both shiver. But, around them, the street is pristine. They’ve never seen DC like this before, with the roads and gutters hidden beneath a field of ice-white snow.

There’s really only one thing to do. In the silent breath of winter on this cold, dark, snowbound night, Emily takes JJ’s hand and dances with her on the untouched snow, leaving behind nothing but footprints and the echoes of their laughter.


	14. December 14th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Talk**  -  **100 words**  - A sprig of mistletoe. Two characters. Dialogue ONLY.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I cheated.

Emily

_> Are you seeing what I’m seeing?_

_Our team being drunk and disorderly? Why yes. Yes, I am seeing that. Also, why are you texting me. I’m right here. <_

_> Don’t question me. No no. By the window. To your right._

_> Your other right._

_Wow, Reid’s drunk. Is Hotch smiling? <_

_> Look UP._

_… oh my. Have they seen it? <_

_Never mind, they’ve definitely seen it <_

Spencer

_Slut <_

_> Shut up. Hypocrite_

_Hypocrite? I’m not the one smooching the bossner. <_

_> Look up._

_> Is that JJ walking towards you. Oh my. Someone must have… messaged her. Who could it be._

_> : )_

_I hate you <_

_> Kissy kissy_


	15. December 15th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Myth**  -  **100 words**  - An in-character, canon explanation of your fandom’s frost on the windows myth.

“I crushed on Jack Frost when I was twelve,” says Emily, and, honestly, that’s not surprising. Tall, frosty, only around for three months a year? Emily’s perfect man. “I used to draw pictures of what I figured he looked like on all my notebooks.” They’re lying on Emily’s bed, watching fingers of frost creep across the barely lit windows. “Think about it. A lonely boy, invisible to everyone… only way he can communicate is by icing things up. It’s beautiful.”

“It’s sad.” To JJ, it’s heartbreaking, thinking of a little girl waiting longingly for winter.

“Maybe.” Emily looks thoughtful. “Maybe…”


	16. December 16th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Soap**  -  **400 words**  - When relatives come to visit for the holidays, things get a little out of control.

“Oh my god, my mother wants to spend Christmas lunch with us,” Emily announces one day, horror in every hidden line of her body despite how outwardly calm she seems. “I want to die.”

“Hmm,” says JJ, and then she invites over the entire team and gets them all drunk before the elder Prentiss even arrives. It’s the least she can do, seeing as she’s pretty sure Emily and Elizabeth’s current disagreement is centred around Elizabeth’s surprise at Emily nonchalantly texting her: _hey Mom, I’m dating JJ, much love : )_

It’s an expected disaster, and Emily, who has always treasured controlled chaos, loves every minute of it.

Spence and Morgan get in a fight over the Christmas crackers that Emily insists on, a tradition she’d picked up from somewhere and sticks firmly to. JJ isn’t sure why, until it’s discovered that each flimsy cardboard tube contains a dinky plastic toy, a gaudy paper crown, and riddles.

Riddles, after this Christmas are banned from the household, as Morgan and Spence bicker viciously over whether Reid’s idea of an achievable riddle is actually achievable for people who aren’t ‘ninety percent brain’.

Hotch and Elizabeth have a very polite disagreement over politics that’s so polite that it takes everyone almost three hours to realise that they’re arguing at all, and only realise at all because Hotch loosens his tie ever so slightly. A dangerous sign.

JJ wisely decides to alter the seating arrangements and puts Elizabeth next to Rossi, the most easy-going.

Rossi, who accidentally sets Spencer’s sleeve on fire trying to illustrate a flaming pudding. Once the fire is put out and Spence calmed down by plying him with more wine, they remove all ignition sources and move seats again—this time Spence to between JJ and Emily, where the only way he’ll be suddenly engulfed in flames is if he spontaneously combusts. And the rest of lunch goes well, aside from Emily and Spencer eying each other’s desserts with their forks dangerously close.

Almost well.

It ends in disaster.

“Hey,” Emily says suddenly, looking up and down the table, “where’s Mom?”

Spencer peers as well, before tensing like a rabbit spotting the fox. “Where’s Rossi?” he asks, eyes widening. A similar horror soon appears on Emily’s face as it clicks.

“Oh my god,” says Hotch, and downs his wine.

JJ covers her face. They’re never going to live this down.


	17. December 17th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Fun**  -  **100 words**  - Go outside and [have some fun.](https://i.imgur.com/Og14EhA.gif)

They take Boris outside on his leash watching him bounce about from snowdrift to snowdrift and falling in every one.

“There’s something wrong with my cat,” Emily complains, following the taut leash down to the sound of frantic purring. He comes out frosty with his tongue hanging out, without any of Sergio’s decorum.

“Well, you are his owner,” JJ says. Her voice is dangerously sly, and Emily turns, suspicious. The snowball hits her dead in the face. It’s followed by a second, which Boris tries to eat.

“There’s something wrong with _you_ ,” Emily adds, before bending to scoop up snow.


	18. December 18th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Reveal**  -  **400 words**  - What diabolical or sweet machinations is this character [hiding?!](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RevealingHug)

It had been a vicious fight and completely unexpected. JJ’s never seen Emily so upset, so angry and hurt. And both of them were wrong, in their own way. Both of them were cruel and both selfish and both, most grimly, right in their own way as well. Maybe it was something they should have discussed years ago, when they’d started this thing that they have. No, not maybe. Definitely. JJ’s not willing to bend down completely on this, and Emily shouldn’t have to bow to her wishes either. This might be the end of them, and rightly so. A deal-breaker.

They should have talked about it earlier.

She finds Emily curled on the couch, a blanket around her knees and Boris snuggled close. Her back is to JJ, hovering behind her, and Boris has his paws planted on her shoulder, head to her neck, watching JJ judgmentally. Even the cat is mad at her. But she can’t take the steps that will take her around to Emily’s front and face the expression there. If Emily is sensing the end of them looming as well, sensing the dissolution of something they’ve come to cherish… JJ can’t see tears or guilt or even anger, not if she’s to say what she has to say.

“I can’t compromise on this,” she says, and sees Emily’s shoulders tense. “I can’t. I want a family, Em. I don’t want to… I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not alone,” comes the mumbled reply. “You have me.”

“Will I always?” JJ says. It hurts. “Can you guarantee that?”

It’s selfish. It’s cruel. They should have talked about this years ago.

“But…” JJ pauses. This might not work, it _shouldn’t_ work. It’s a little bit like having her cake and eating it too, and is that fair on Emily? “We still live separately, even now? We have separate lives, just intertwined… if I take steps, one day, to have a family… you don’t have to be a parent, Em.”

Emily’s head lifts. She’s still not looking and there’s confusion in her voice. “That seems selfish of me, forcing you into raising a child alone…”

“Well. I wouldn’t really be alone. Not really.” She takes that step, finally looking down into Emily’s eyes. “It’s not traditional but, shit, we’re not traditional. You can be Aunt Em.”

And Emily’s smiling, through the tears. “That I can definitely do.”


	19. December 19th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **NoeL**  -  **100 words**  - Character Loves and Licks a deLicious hauL of LoLLies. The catch? No using the letter ‘L.’

JJ ignores the two idiots busy working their way through a stack of candy the size of Em’s cat. The whispered bickering drifting over to her from the two bowed heads suggests that she’s hanging out with kids instead of the grown-ups they pretend to be.

“Stop hogging the damn chips, Reid,” Em bitches, pushing the packet away from his grabby fingers. The cat, hovering behind them, sneaks a paw forward and tugs it further.

“Maybe when you stop tasting everything and putting it back,” Spence responds, eyes on the hungry cat.

JJ sighs. Who says growing up is certain?


	20. December 20th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Evil**  -  **100 words**  - Straight from your character’s worst nightmares: evil Santa is on the loose!

Emily finds JJ sitting in the room with her head low. There’s a steady _beep beep beep_ from the machine connected to the small shape within the bed, a whispered _whirr whoosh_ of the ventilator humming along. It’s a grim scene, despite the cheerfully painted walls. The boy is silent. It’s the month before Christmas and there’s no presents waiting for him this year. No joy.

Just his family’s funerals and the trauma that doesn’t end.

“We caught the unsub,” Emily says, and knows it’s not enough. “Mall Santa… he followed them home.”

JJ doesn’t answer.

Too little, too late.


	21. December 21st

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Hog**  -  **200 words**  - Happy (early) [Hogswatchnight!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogfather) Celebrate this Discworld holiday in your fandom by taking someone’s holiday wish list literally.

It’s a drunk, fly-away comment. Emily can’t get it out of her head. It lurks and she wonders, she truly wonders, if it’s possible. There’s a shadow lingering over JJ that’s roiling and cold, the kind of shadow that doesn’t go away—it just grows and festers and will eventually devour any small joy she finds in their job.

She goes to Hotch. He listens to her proposition, his hands motionless on the desk. It’s a dangerous precedent, and Emily knows why. They can’t fall into the trap of believing that they can save everyone. But maybe, just maybe, this Christmas they can save just one. Just one. This time: everybody lives, if not happily ever after, because that’s impossible when the beginning of this story is written in blood, but maybe something close.

It can’t be a surprise. Not something this big. They go to JJ together, and they ask her.

It’s a drunk, fly-away comment—JJ wondering if the little boy with the murdered family would have a home to go to this Christmas. And they’d known: he didn’t.

But, he could.

His name is Henry. He has no one else.

They bring him home by Christmas Eve.


	22. December 22nd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Slide**  -  **100 words**  - Everything is [super slippery](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlippySlideyIceWorld) for some reason.

Henry turns five in summer and, despite the heat, they take him skating. It seems right that they celebrate this day with something new and unknown.

Emily hangs on the sideline and mostly just watches, since they’d agreed at the start that parenting is JJ’s adventure. They move in slow, gliding circles around the slippery, almost empty ice of the quiet rink, the boy bundled up tight against the cold. And he never falls. Emily watches him as he watches JJ, his small hand never leaving hers.

She wonders, as he skates, if he thinks of the possibility of flying.


	23. December 23rd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Dragonforce** - **500 words** \- “Through the fire and the flames we carry on” – Dragonforce, _Through the Fire and the Flames_

It happens in a flash and brings everything crashing down. It’s remarkable, how small a thing can be and still be able to bring a story to an inflammatory end. In this case, it’s a match. Just a single match, thrown carelessly but with intent.

Emily watches it happen. Here’s what she sees:

She’s leaning on the car, waiting for JJ to finish up inside the local precinct they’re parked out the front of. The car is blue; there’s a pen wedged on the inside between the dash and the windscreen. If she looks to the glass doors of the precinct, she could see JJ wearing Emily’s favourite sweater—it’s purple, of course, since Reid gave it to her—and talking to the sheriff as she signs the release paperwork. But she’s not looking, her attention is locked on that pen, wondering absentmindedly who shoved it there. Probably Reid.

JJ is in the middle of it. Here’s what she feels:

Pressure. Her ears pop and she’s already being thrown against the counter before she registers the sound. Then comes the boom.

Then comes the heat; she’s already on the ground. There’s shrapnel in her and her head rings from slamming into the polished wood. She registers all of this—the fire crackling as the flames are sucked in and then out with the twin forces of the explosion—but mostly she just registers the pen that’s been slammed into the meaty part of her palm, the only pain she really feels in that instant. Dark ink mixes with blood and she blinks, touches it gently, and the roof comes down and brings with it smoke and choking smog and insulation that ignites simply from the heat in the air. Her ears pop as her body is crushed.

Sirens. And silence.

Darkness.

She’s curls up close with her knees to her chest as the flames reach down. There’s nothing she can do. After all of this, after everything she’s done, it’s excruciating to realise that this might be the end of her.

She thinks of Emily.

She thinks of Henry.

Then she closes her eyes and thinks of nothing at all.

Here’s what the team knows: they’re not going to get there in time. It’s a half hour drive, even breaking every law to get there. JJ is on her own, except not really.

Here’s what Emily does:

She doesn’t hesitate. JJ needs to go home; Emily doesn’t.

It’s not hard to get in despite the people screaming at her to stop; the explosion blew those glass doors out. She dives into the flames and through the smoke until she’s crawling on the ground feeling metal and wood and glass tear through unprotected skin. There’s something burning on her arm that doesn’t let go when she rolls to shake it off, and that’s when her hand touches another.

She hopes its JJ but doesn’t know for sure; she’s long been blinded by the smoke.

She takes that hand, and she pulls.


	24. December 24th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Fight** \- 300 words - [Image prompt](https://rheatheranger.deviantart.com/art/Fire-and-Ice-SAI-295805584)

She dreams of a woman of fire, reaching a hand that burns when she tries to touch it. Where their fingers meet, her skin blackens and crumbles, leaving her raw. Leaving her exposed to the searing air as it works to do what the woman’s touch hasn’t managed yet and destroy her completely. The woman of fire is furious. Points of white-hot heat blaze as her eyes, the flames around her incendiary. If JJ tries to listen, she can almost make out the words: she’s saying _help me._ She’s saying, _Try harder._

JJ says, _I am_ , and wonders if any words had actually managed to slip from her frozen mouth. She’s a woman of winter and ice and water and she’s being devoured by the flames around her. But the dream begins to fade. It leaves her paused between waking and dying, well aware of her tentative grasp on them both. Despite the conscious world working to steal her back from nothing, one thing doesn’t change. The woman of fire still holds her, no matter how much it’s hurting them both—because it is hurting them both. JJ can see that now. Her frozen touch makes the other woman’s light splutter and gut, like a candle being snuffed out. They’re both in danger.

She clicks.

Emily is like summer to her winter, the heat that stole into her isolated world. A fire that refused to be doused, no matter how hard Doyle had tried. JJ’s always preferred winter, but she’s learned to love the sun.

And Emily is in danger.

She wakes up. They’re in a fire and she can’t breathe. But Emily is there, Emily holds her, and she says, “Get up—we’ll die if you don’t. I knew you’d be the death of me, Jareau.”

JJ gets up.


	25. December 25th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Pressure** \- 400 words - In perpetual darkness and faced with incredible pressure, it’s easy to imagine that the Mariana Trench is one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. The water is below freezing but, around the floor-vents, water forced out reaches intense temperatures.

They spend Christmas curled up together, JJ and Emily with Henry between them, desperately trying not to jolt the many injuries JJ is littered with. Outside, a sleeting rain hammers the windows; inside, they’re warm and sleepy and overtired with the excitement of the day. Henry, five-years-old and giddy with the presents he’s been given, only wants to spend time with one of them in particular: a DVD collection of nature documentaries Reid had arrived with and proudly handed over. The man himself is asleep on the couch behind them, a victim to JJ pushing ‘doctored’ eggnog on him for the past four hours.

On the screen, the deepest part of the ocean is depicted for the entranced Henry. JJ is dozing. Emily watches them both, glad to be here, alive. Still haunted by the memories of the flames they’d barely survived, the crushing pressure of the explosion throwing her back against the car and then dragging her forward as it had folded inwards on itself and brought the entire building crashing in.

Emily thinks of this and also thinks of dying, as she spends Christmas with the people she loves most.

When she opens her eyes, the DVD is finished and Henry is asleep on her lap, JJ curled on her side and breathing deeply. The room is dark.

“It’s intensely inhospitable,” Reid says from behind her, his voice startling.

“Hmm?”

He continues: “The Marianas Trench… you wouldn’t think life could survive there… who’d want to try?”

She’s tense, because she can tell that he’s being ‘Reidy’: “If this is an analogy…” she warns him, leaving the threat hanging.

“It’s not.” He pauses. “Okay, it is. You guys could have died, you know…”

“And?”

She listens to him shift on the couch, turning gently so she doesn’t wake Henry as he touches a finger to the bandage covering the burn on her arm. “Just saying,” he murmurs, “maybe stop fighting them so viciously… it’s okay to change your mind. If your priorities have changed, that’s okay too.”

“Stop profiling me.” She’s bitchy, but only because he’s right, fuck him. This? Christmas and eggnog and boring documentaries?

Despite the pressures of her life and the things tearing them apart, despite how impossible the co-existence of winter and summer is… she wants this. All of it.

“Stop being so easy to profile,” is his sharp retort.

She hates when he’s right.


	26. December 26th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Chilli** \- 300 words - Mmm, a mug of hot chocolate. So soothing and warm… a little too warm. Uh oh. _Chilli._

JJ’s dressed to the nines and Emily’s barely mustering the self-control not to be lecherous about it. It’s a rare night out and Emily is gleeful because their dresses are lovely, but taking them off is going to be even lovelier.

Until JJ’s cell-phone rings.

“That’s never good,” JJ says. Emily translates: that’s never good when Reid is babysitting. There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that says tonight is probably going to end here. When JJ answers, crying is audible from Emily’s side of the table even before JJ shuffles around so they can both hear.

“I’ve made a mistake,” Reid is wailing, his voice miserable. “I was making hot chocolate and trying to teach Henry the history so I used chilli flakes in mine but he drank the wrong one and—” Emily realises what the wailing is; the panicked howls of a very small child with no way of conceptualising what is happening to his body right now.

“Oh boy,” JJ murmurs, and she’s almost not smiling.

There’s a bang and more sobbing, Henry distantly being heard as a muted, “My mouth is crying!”

“He’s all red and his eyes are watering and—” Spencer is utterly panicked. Emily decides to very quickly eat her garlic bread, sensing disaster. And Spencer is _still_ rambling.

JJ asks for the calmest one—Henry—to be put on, soothing him gently when his hiccupping voice can be heard: “Don’t cry, sweetie.”

“I’m not,” Henry manages to choke out, and Emily realises. He’s not _crying_ , he’s _laughing_. “That’s Spence—my whole _face_ is leaking!”

By the time JJ gets off the phone, she’s definitely smiling. “Should we go?” Emily asks.

“Nah,” is the reply, JJ smirking. “They sound fine. And, besides, I have our own hot night planned…”


	27. December 27th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **SnowCat** \- 200 words - [Image prompt](https://favim.com/media/uploads/images/610/140319/animals-cat-christmas-cute-Favim.com-1509072.jpg)

JJ had answered the phone to Emily sounding about as panicked as she ever sounds, and that had resulted in this. Walking the streets of DC in the dead of night with only Henry having fun as they search for Emily’s ridiculous cat in the slushy snow of early winter. It’d almost be fun, the cold and the snow and Henry in his poofy parka getting excited about the footprints they’re leaving, but Emily is miserable and worried and there’s a chance they won’t find him.

“I don’t even know how he got out,” she’s saying, stopping to shine her flashlight down an alley and jingle his favourite toy hopefully. “He _never_ runs off like this…”

“We’ll find him,” JJ says, hoping that she’s right even as she doubts it. But, when she looks back to Henry, he’s gone.

Her heart stops for that one instant of expecting him and not seeing him, before they hear him call out. They find him, and they find what he’s found too. Two snow-covered figures in the snow, huddled together.

“I got Boris,” he says proudly, and JJ’s never seen Emily hug him so hard.

“See,” says JJ. “Told you we’d find him.”


	28. December 28th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Poem** \- 100 words - Ice is unemotional, jagged, and cold; fire’s passion makes one bold.

Snowed in for two days with the team isn’t exactly Emily’s idea of a romantic six-year anniversary but she’s determined to make it work.

“We’re going to get busted by Hotch,” JJ is whispering. Emily doesn’t care. The closet is uncomfortable but, shit, they’ve spent time in a bunker together—at least here they’re not about to die.

“Let him bust us,” she replies, and kisses her. It’s bold, which she is, and romantic, which she usually isn’t, but if there’s one thing about loving JJ, it’s that it’s easy.

Winter might be her season, but she’s not frozen anymore.


	29. December 29th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Fun** \- 400 words - It’s a lovey, but cold, day outside—better rug up and enjoy the snow. Snowmen, snow angels, snowballs; with forts and igloos and sledding. Whew, what a big day of snow fun!

“I’m sick of snow,” are words that JJ never thought she’d hear from Emily’s mouth, but there they are. It’s a pity she says them right as they’re stuck on the back-end of another Alaskan case, with no planes ready to fly them back home until the following morning. “I’m bored, I’m cold, and there isn’t a bra alive that could stop my—”

“Let’s go see what the others are doing,” JJ cuts in, seeing Reid’s head snap up, eyes wide.

They go looking. Hotch isn’t in his room, finishing paperwork; Morgan isn’t in the shower, using all the hot water. There’s no sign of Garcia by her computer hardware or Rossi in the kitchen flirting with the staff.

Their team is just… gone?

But there’s a shout, a laugh—JJ almost recognises it. Basically _does_ recognise it, but it’s… Hotch?

Does Hotch laugh?

They follow the strange sound and find something out of their strangest fever dreams. The team are outside in the snow, and they’re… playing. Like children. _With_ children.

The air of terror that had settled over the town over the past few months of a killer striding loose is gone, dissipated like the fresh snow settling. People are out on the street again, no sign of fear and only some whispers of grief remaining. And, among them, the team. Hotch is helping three children make a snow igloo; Morgan is instructing Rossi in the fine art of snowman making, even as Rossi interrupts with a loud, “I’ve been making snowmen before you were even snowmade!” which… doesn’t really make sense.

They find Garcia sitting next to a pile of snowballs. “We got bored,” she announces, patting the pile with a thickly gloved hand. “Want to help me war against Rossi? He spilt cocoa on my keyboard and I am out for _revenge._ ”

“Do I _ever_ ,” says Emily, her hatred of snow apparently fading. JJ looks to Reid. Reid looks back.

“We’ll never get another chance,” she points out. “When is his guard going to be _this_ down?”

And Reid grins. “Dibs on Hotch,” he says, and vanishes with a snowball in hand before she can tell him that’s a bad idea.

If, in the end, JJ ends up joining in on trying to bury Reid in a snowdrift while Hotch holds him down, well, they make an agreement: what happens in Alaska, stays in Alaska.


	30. December 30th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Fowl** \- 100 words - All is well out shopping until there is ‘fowl’ play in the freezer aisle. Tumbling turkeys everywhere!

“I didn’t mean to,” says Henry. JJ looks right past him, up to his ‘responsible adult’.

“It was Henry,” Emily says, trying to look innocent.

“These two,” the store manager says, trying not to look as angry as he obviously is, “drove a shopping cart _into_ our freezer. Do you have any idea how many turkeys took damage in the incident! And that boy was _laughing_ about it!”

Emily bristles. “Don’t call my son ‘that’ boy,” she snaps. “We’ll pay for damages.”

JJ decides that she doesn’t really care. Despite the bill, she smiles for the rest of the day.


	31. December 31st

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Content** \- 100 words - The kindling of passion; the spark of attraction; the flames of family; the embers of contentment.

Their first moment was on a wild mountain. Their first kiss was to celebrate living.

Their lives together were born of fear and fire; agents in arms and partners in every possible way.

Time moved on. JJ started a family. Emily joined her. Henry became theirs, in heart, soul, and—as far as they were concerned—blood.

But stories don’t end so neatly. There were tales untold and stories left forgotten and memories that were only theirs and no one else’s. They had their team; they had each other. And they didn’t live happily ever after

They just lived happily.


End file.
